Colleges feeding growing economic divide

[Deleted]

Happy Friday!

Top Colleges, Largely for the Elite
By DAVID LEONHARDT
Published: May 24, 2011

The last four presidents of the United States each attended a highly selective college. All nine Supreme Court justices did, too, as did the chief executives of General Electric (Dartmouth), Goldman Sachs (Harvard), Wal-Mart (Georgia Tech), Exxon Mobil (Texas) and Google (Michigan).

Anthony Marx presided over his final graduation at Amherst College on Sunday. He led big gains in diversity at Amherst.

Like it or not, these colleges have outsize influence on American society. So their admissions policies don’t matter just to high school seniors; they’re a matter of national interest.

More than seven years ago, a 44-year-old political scientist named Anthony Marx became the president of Amherst College, in western Massachusetts, and set out to change its admissions policies. Mr. Marx argued that elite colleges were neither as good nor as meritocratic as they could be, because they mostly overlooked lower-income students.

For all of the other ways that top colleges had become diverse, their student bodies remained shockingly affluent. At the University of Michigan, more entering freshmen in 2003 came from families earning at least $200,000 a year than came from the entire bottom half of the income distribution. At some private colleges, the numbers were even more extreme.

In his 2003 inaugural address, Mr. Marx — quoting from a speech President John F. Kennedy had given at Amherst — asked, “What good is a private college unless it is serving a great national purpose?”

On Sunday, Mr. Marx presided over his final Amherst graduation. This summer, he will become head of the New York Public Library. And he can point to some impressive successes at Amherst.

More than 22 percent of students now receive federal Pell Grants (a rough approximation of how many are in the bottom half of the nation’s income distribution). In 2005, only 13 percent did. Over the same period, other elite colleges have also been doing more to recruit low- and middle-income students, and they have made some progress.

It is tempting, then, to point to all these changes and proclaim that elite higher education is at long last a meritocracy. But Mr. Marx doesn’t buy it. If anything, he worries, the progress has the potential to distract people from how troubling the situation remains.

When we spoke recently, he mentioned a Georgetown University study of the class of 2010 at the country’s 193 most selective colleges. As entering freshmen, only 15 percent of students came from the bottom half of the income distribution. Sixty-seven percent came from the highest-earning fourth of the distribution. These statistics mean that on many campuses affluent students outnumber middle-class students.

“We claim to be part of the American dream and of a system based on merit and opportunity and talent,” Mr. Marx says. “Yet if at the top places, two-thirds of the students come from the top quartile and only 5 percent come from the bottom quartile, then we are actually part of the problem of the growing economic divide rather than part of the solution.”

I think Amherst has created a model for attracting talented low- and middle-income students that other colleges can copy. It borrows, in part, from the University of California, which is by far the most economically diverse top university system in the country. But before we get to the details, I want to address a question that often comes up in this discussion:

Does more economic diversity necessarily mean lower admissions standards?

No, it does not.

The truth is that many of the most capable low- and middle-income students attend community colleges or less selective four-year colleges close to their home. Doing so makes them less likely to graduate from college at all, research has shown. Incredibly, only 44 percent of low-income high school seniors with high standardized test scores enroll in a four-year college, according to a Century Foundation report — compared with about 50 percent of high-income seniors who have average test scores.

“The extent of wasted human capital,” wrote the report’s authors, Anthony P. Carnevale and Jeff Strohl, “is phenomenal.”

This comparison understates the problem, too, because SAT scores are hardly a pure measure of merit. Well-off students often receive SAT coaching and take the test more than once, Mr. Marx notes, and top colleges reward them for doing both. Colleges also reward students for overseas travel and elaborate community service projects. “Colleges don’t recognize, in the same way, if you work at the neighborhood 7-Eleven to support your family,” he adds.

Several years ago, William Bowen, a former president of Princeton, and two other researchers found that top colleges gave no admissions advantage to low-income students, despite claims to the contrary. Children of alumni received an advantage. Minorities (except Asians) and athletes received an even bigger advantage. But all else equal, a low-income applicant was no more likely to get in than a high-income applicant with the same SAT score. It’s pretty hard to call that meritocracy.

Amherst has shown that building a better meritocracy is possible, by doing, as Mr. Marx says, “everything we can think of.”

The effort starts with financial aid. The college has devoted more of its resources to aid, even if the dining halls don’t end up being as fancy as those at rival colleges. Outright grants have replaced most loans, not just for poor students but for middle-class ones. The college has started a scholarship for low-income foreign students, who don’t qualify for Pell Grants. And Amherst officials visit high schools they had never visited before to spread the word.

The college has also started using its transfer program mostly to admit community college students. This step may be the single easiest way for a college to become more meritocratic. It’s one reason the University of California campuses in Berkeley, Los Angeles and San Diego are so much more diverse than other top colleges.

Many community colleges have horrifically high dropout rates, but the students who succeed there are often inspiring. They include war veterans, single parents and immigrants who have managed to overcome the odds. At Amherst this year, 62 percent of transfer students came from a community college.

Finally, Mr. Marx says Amherst does put a thumb on the scale to give poor students more credit for a given SAT score. Not everyone will love that policy. “Spots at these places are precious,” he notes. But I find it tough to argue that a 1,300 score for most graduates of Phillips Exeter Academy — or most children of Amherst alumni — is as impressive as a 1,250 for someone from McDowell County, W.Va., or the South Bronx.

The result of these changes is that Amherst has a much higher share of low-income students than almost any other elite college. By itself, of course, Amherst is not big enough to influence the American economy. But its policies could affect the economy if more colleges adopted them.

The United States no longer leads the world in educational attainment, partly because so few low-income students — and surprisingly few middle-income students — graduate from four-year colleges. Getting more of these students into the best colleges would make a difference. Many higher-income students would still graduate from college, even if they went to a less elite one. A more educated population, in turn, would probably lift economic growth.

The Amherst model does cost money. And it would be difficult to maintain if Congress cuts the Pell budget, as some members have proposed. But when you add everything up, I think the model isn’t only the fairest one and the right one for the economy. It’s also the best one for the colleges themselves. Attracting the best of the best — not just the best of the affluent — and letting them learn from one another is the whole point of a place like Amherst.

“We did this for educational reasons,” Mr. Marx says. “We aim to be the most diverse college in the country — and the most selective.”

[phil5185]

When we spoke recently, he mentioned a Georgetown University study of the class of 2010 at the country’s 193 most selective colleges. As entering freshmen, only 15 percent of students came from the bottom half of the income distribution. Sixty-seven percent came from the highest-earning fourth of the distribution. These statistics mean that on many campuses affluent students outnumber middle-class students.

I don't see this as either surprising or disappointing. Affluent families are usually (not always) affluent due to higher intelligence/ambition. Their offspring intermarry and beget ever smarter offspring. So, no surprise that they would qualify/pass the testing to make up 67% of the freshman class. But the good news is that the shining stars of lower class families were identified and given a chance.

What I object to is the socialism of the most recent 30 years, academia has moved from a mildly 'left' influence to a blatant socialist curriculum to the extent that a conservative student's grades are in jeopardy.

The US is a capitalist society that was built on capitalism - but if you hammer the brightest young minds with the 'capitalism is bad' propaganda for 4 yrs it has a big effect. Then our new political leaders are anti business (obama, pelosi, reid), so they lead us to hate Big Oil, Big Pharma, yada - and our new leaders of Industry hate the very corporations that they lead (GE's Immelt?).

And we wonder why our corporations shutter their Plants and move to nations where people want to work, appreciate jobs.

[Tiny]

[/b]Their offspring intermarry and beget ever smarter offspring. So, no surprise that they would qualify/pass the testing to make up 67% of the freshman class.

I'm not so sure that they beget 'smarter' offspring so much as there are expectations of their offspring to go to particular schools which may pressure their kids into performing better in grade/highschool. If you start out with the goal of qualifying for Such and Such College/University you usually start preparing early - and not during the last six months of HS.

That said, I bet if more lower income/middle class schools actively "recruited" their more motivated/smarter kids AND give those kids/parents a clearer path (meaning showing them a path to the money and the course work necessary) to Such and Such College/University then maybe more kids would get the grades/necessary requirements and the money to get into those colleges/universities.

I know I wasn't a particularly stellar student in HS mostly because I didn't see how it mattered much long term what classes I took or what grades I got (My gpa was 3.8 and I barely did anything to get those A's (and occassional B's)) It wasn't until a friend got out of a boring as hell english class by visiting a counselor that I did the same thing - and low and behold I discovered I could take a test and maybe qualify for AP courses... Not ONE adult involved my education EVER mentioned this to me. I had to speak up and ask about it. This was hard for me to do since I came from a private grade school when students didn't ask questions or ask for anything - it was drilled in that you just repeated back what the teachers wanted to hear. There were no choices or alternative ways to do things.

I'm not super intelligent or anything -- but I strongly suspect if I had had some idea that there were different course paths (regular alegebra/history/english/biology course versus the AP ones) I might have been motivated to work alittle harder to get into those classes -- even if it did nothing more than ease my boredom. I find avoiding boredom VERY motivating...
I wonder how many other 'smart' kids skate thru school bored and unmotivated with no formal goal for the future or hope that things could be better (less boring more interesting).

[gsbrq]

I don't see this as either surprising or disappointing. Affluent families are usually (not always) affluent due to higher intelligence/ambition. Their offspring intermarry and beget ever smarter offspring. So, no surprise that they would qualify/pass the testing to make up 67% of the freshman class.

Well, that is one way to look at it.

Another analysis is that wealthier kids get the lion's share of educational resources in grades K-12, and that advantage means that an average kid from a wealthy family has a better chance at admission than a brighter kid from a less-advantaged background.

[Deleted]

I think 67% go to these schools because they can better afford it. Even with grants, etc., it is hard for a low-income kid to go to college.

Harvard gives "free" tuition to any student who gets accepted and whose family's income is below $40,000. That's great, but there are still books, room/board, and living expenses. Plus, there are the "extras" like "Abroad courses," etc.

A colleague at school has a son at a private college. The son got a scholarship and loans. But he wants to a semester in L.A. since he is interested in film. The colleague is absolutely broke because he's trying to pay for this. He was thrilled to buy his Keurig on QVC so he could do 3 payments!!!!

There are real reasons why the elite schools and regular kids are an oxymoron.

[maraqxa]

May 27, 2011 17:33:07 GMT -5 @gsbrq said:

I don't see this as either surprising or disappointing. Affluent families are usually (not always) affluent due to higher intelligence/ambition. Their offspring intermarry and beget ever smarter offspring. So, no surprise that they would qualify/pass the testing to make up 67% of the freshman class.

Well, that is one way to look at it.

Another analysis is that wealthier kids get the lion's share of educational resources in grades K-12, and that advantage means that an average kid from a wealthy family has a better chance at admission than a brighter kid from a less-advantaged background.

Or wealthier families have higher expectation of their children compared to lower income families as they don't think that their kids could ever afford to go to college. Latinos are the fastest growing minority in the US right now yet very few go to college as their parents are not educated enough to know that there are ways to do it even with student loans and I'm talking "legal" people. I think the mentality of the lower income people is that college is only for the rich.

[haapai]

It's a little ironic that an analysis like this is finally possible because almost everyone is filling out a FAFSA.

[Savoir Faire-Demogague in NJ]

I read most of the initial post... nearly to the end. I saw "affluent" and I saw "low income". I did not see middle income families mentioned at all.
If I happened to miss that, please point it out.

[Deleted]

There's a line in there about how few middle income individuals graduate four year colleges but I can't find any statistics on the topic.

[Deleted]

trends.collegeboard.org/education_pays/report_findings/indicator/College_Enrollment_by_Income

It's enrollment rates, not graduation.

[maraqxa]

The way our sistem is setup and I'm not saying whether is right or wrong is that the higher income students have way more advantages that lower/middle income most of the time.
They can devote more time to school therefore getting better grades, they might have a better networking circle which will help them land a job. I recruit for accounting students in my company (my side job and I go recruit at national events or certain universities, well, not every kid out there get to go these events as it costs money, also many companies will fill their entry-level positions with past interns, at least that's what we try to do in my company so a student before junior year needs to start doing research and try to get in with those companies.
The ones that follow the traditional route, go to school, work sometimes have a lesser advantage and thats the route I chose, lucky for me, I got a job with a big company a month after I finished, I think the fact that I was willing to relocate anywhere helped.

[stats45]

Most of the highly elite schools pay nearly all tuition and fees for students who can't afford it.

As little as fifty/sixty years ago, many of the large Ivy League universities had SAT scores lower than good state schools. This has changed now. The college admission system is much more meritocratic than it has ever been. Test scores and grades predict most of whether or not you will enter any of the top universities. The sorting mechanisms in our society are better than they have ever been, and the results are passed down to children who are already pretty well sorted by the time they are ready to make decisions about college.

The advantages of high income households are passed onto their children in many ways.

First, there is at least some heritability to intelligence. Successful people are more likely to be more intelligent, and they pass on this advantage to their children.

Second, higher income households are more likely to have attended a great college, so they place those goals and expectations for their children early in life. They are willing to make large commitments to their children's education to have them attend the same schools (private school, tutors, resources for extracurricular activies).

Third, higher income households often live in different communities and areas. Their children are surrounded by other high achieving children, and they are better culturally prepared for college.

Finally, higher income households have the financial means to pay the tuition bill if needed. Their children are less likely to decide (for example) to go to an honors program at a great state school than attend the excellent (yet expensive) private college.